Puentes-Bridges-Ponts by Teresa Esteban

In “Puentes-Bridges-Ponts,” Spanish artist Teresa Esteban captures the souls of five cities –Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Madrid and Barcelona– building bridges between Spain and Canada.

Drawing a city is like drawing a portrait of a person. There are innumerable features, details, wrinkles, but the portraitist must select the most relevant data that allow us to decode, through the vision of the portrait, the soul of that person, her inner world. That is the work that Teresa Esteban has developed in the imaginary cartography of these cities, reflecting life and the way in which that city has been generated, has grown and has been transformed throughout space and time.

For this process of research into the soul of cities, it is necessary to let them speak, to capture their colors, to deepen in the vegetation that emerges behind the buildings, in the shape of a riverbank, in the drawing of the manhole covers. All this is part of that patient creation of centuries, that accumulation of material forms and immaterial feelings that make up every city.

To achieve this goal, Teresa Esteban has visited Canada and walked through the cities portrayed in her work. The result of these trips and walks is a set of works that represent and capture the reality of cities and that communicate that hidden spirit.

In the same way that in the book The Invisible Cities, Marco Polo communicated to Kublai Khan the reality of the innumerable cities of his empire, Esteban, with her works, reveals the hidden soul of these cities on both sides of the ocean.

About Teresa Esteban

Teresa Esteban has a PhD in Fine Arts, specializing in sculpture, from the Complutense University of Madrid and has shown her work in individual exhibitions in Madrid, Paris, Rabat, Casablanca, Tehran and Riyadh, among others.

Opening reception at ByWard Gallery on Wednesday, October 5th at 6 pm with Ambassador of Spain Alfredo Martínez in attendance, followed by a reception.